Am I ready to retire calculator

It answers “am I ready to retire?” by projecting your current savings and ongoing contributions forward to your target retirement age, turning that nest egg into sustainable annual income using a safe withdrawal rate, then adding your expected CPP and OAS. It compares that projected income against your income goal and expresses the result as a readiness score out of 100. A score of 100 means your projected income fully covers your goal.

A score of 100 or more means you're on track — your projected retirement income meets or beats your spending goal. 85–99 means you're almost there and small tweaks (saving a bit more, working a year or two longer, or trimming the goal) will close the gap. 60–84 needs attention, and under 60 means there's meaningful work to do. The score is a planning gauge, not a guarantee — markets, inflation and your real spending will all differ from the assumptions.

A common rule of thumb is 70% of your pre-retirement income, because some costs (commuting, mortgage, saving for retirement itself) fall away. But it varies enormously with your lifestyle, housing situation and health. Enter the after-tax annual spending you actually want to fund as your income goal — in today's dollars — rather than relying on a rule of thumb. The how much to retire calculator helps you size that number.

Yes — government benefits do a lot of the heavy lifting, so the calculator adds your combined annual CPP and OAS on top of the income your savings can generate. A typical retiree might receive somewhere around $15,000–$25,000 a year combined, but it depends on your contribution history and the age you start. Estimate yours with the CPP calculator and CPP & OAS together, then enter the combined figure here.

So that every number on the page stays in today's dollars and the comparison is apples-to-apples. If you expect a 7% nominal return and 2.5% inflation, your real return is roughly 4.5%. Using a real return means the projected income you see can be compared directly with a spending goal you set in today's money, without having to mentally inflate everything. You can change the assumed real return under “Assumptions”.

If your score is below 100, this is the additional monthly contribution that would grow — at your assumed return, over your remaining years — into the extra nest egg needed to fully fund your goal. It's one lever among several: you could also retire later, spend less, earn a higher return, or count on a larger CPP/OAS. Adjust the inputs to see how each one moves the score.

Yes — it's often the single biggest lever. Working a few more years means more contributions, more compounding, fewer years of retirement to fund, and frequently a larger CPP and OAS if you delay them. The table above shows how your projected income and score change at different retirement ages. Even one or two extra years can swing a “needs attention” score onto track.

Only loosely. Set your income goal as the after-tax spending you want, and treat CPP, OAS and withdrawals as the gross income that funds it — in retirement many Canadians pay relatively little tax thanks to pension credits, income splitting and the basic personal amount. For a closer look at drawing income down tax-efficiently, see the withdrawal order calculator and OAS clawback calculator.

Treat it as a directional planning tool, not a promise. It uses a single steady real return, a fixed withdrawal rate, and assumes your contributions and goal stay constant — real life is bumpier. Its value is in showing whether you're roughly on track and how sensitive that is to saving more, retiring later or spending less. Revisit it yearly, and consider professional advice for a full plan.